White House to send $500 Obamacare checks to 1M Americans

Audio By Carbonatix

(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump announced on Thursday a plan to send $500 rebate checks to nearly 1 million Americans across 30 states for Obamacare overcharges. 

The funds would come from $500 million in overcharges during the Biden administration and will arrive starting in October. The payments represent a step the president is making as he seeks to keep Republicans in control of Congress for the upcoming midterm elections. 

The White House said the Biden administration collected excessive "user fees" from Obamacare consumers that were eventually passed on in the form of higher premiums. 

"The Biden Administration accumulated a significant surplus of funds that were not used to benefit the Americans who paid these higher premiums," the White House wrote in a statement. 

The states benefitting from the program are those that used the federal exchange for the operations of their Obamacare markets. Some states included are Alabama, Florida, Delaware, Hawaii, North Carolina, South Carolina, Michigan, Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin. 

"President Trump is delivering on promises to lower costs for American patients by putting them first and taking on big health insurance companies, drug manufacturers, and other corporate giants that have used the status quo in Washington to raise healthcare costs for Americans," the White House wrote. 

Trump also announced a $5,000 tariff dividend if Republicans manage to hold control of Congress in November. 

However, previous tariff refund checks have yet to be fulfilled and it is unclear whether the United States is actually making enough money to fulfill its obligations under current tariff policies. The proposed dividends would cost about $1.3 trillion, a significant portion of the government's operating budget.

The proposed Obamacare refund checks, however, would come from stored funds held by the Biden adminstration, which could explain the fast tracked timeline for the program.

"The government is going to pay the money directly to you," Trump said. "The big insurance companies lose and the people of our country win."

The Trump administration has worked to rewrite healthcare policy over the past two years. Trump sought deals with 26 major pharmaceutical manufacturers to lower drug prices and increase domestic manufacturing. 

He has also worked to ramp up fraud enforcement in federal healthcare programs and services across the country. The administration has paused more than $2 billion in Medicaid payments to California and issued a moratorium on medical devices to crack down on fraud. 

"We have to end the fraud, waste, and abuse, and this administration will do whatever it takes to keep your taxpayer dollars out of the hands of criminals and fraudsters," HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said.  

"The Trump Administration is cracking down on fraud and corruption, lowering healthcare costs for Americans, and putting the American people over big health insurance companies after the Biden Administration’s mismanagement of Obamacare resulted in massive levels of fraud, higher costs for Americans, and profit windfalls for big health insurance companies," the White House wrote.